Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Today I am writing about Anthony Watts at WUWT writing about Joe Romm at Climate Progress, who is writing about a new paper in PLOS by Hansen et al, which has been doing the rounds of science blogs and anti-science blogs alike. (WUWT is an award winning anti-science blog.)

In a nutshell, what the paper shows is that if we allow 1000 Gt carbon to accumulate in the air, although the initial rise in surface temperature may be 2 degrees, over the medium term slower feedbacks would result in a rise of 3 to 4 degrees. This of course means a lot of unpleasantness, not the least of which would be the huge sea level rise over time.

Going by his headline, Anthony Watts doesn't know the difference between being alarmed and being an alarmist.

Going by his article, Anthony Watts is a piker. He gives up very easily. He is a "can't be done" man, not a "can do" man.

Anthony Watts spends a bit of cyberspace letting his readers know that there is a chap called Tom Nelson who isn't familiar with people who work in climate science. Apparently Tom didn't recognise any of these names:

(I'm not sure why Anthony Watts thought that Tom Nelson's ignorance was in any way newsworthy. Even I recognise quite a few of the authors and I haven't been blogging about climate science for nearly as long as Anthony Watts and Tom Nelson have been protesting it.)

They are clamoring not only for a carbon tax, but also for green technology. But, real world data they cite suggests they are living in a dream world:

I put Anthony Watts in the same category as people who used horses and donkeys and swore that the motor car would never catch on. Although Anthony doesn't appear to favour a switch to renewable energy, one thing he is in favour of governments spending taxpayers' money on is nuclear energy. Anthony writes:

I will give them props for calling for more nuclear energy, but the rest of the paper is nothing more than a climate activist’s wet dream.

Oh, I've just got to post this comment from one of the WUWT deluded. This is the most scientific rebuttal that most of the WUWTers can come up with!

DesertYote says:

December 3, 2013 at 5:46 pmOne can not assume good intentions that have been misdirected by stupidity. Ever single person in this list is a Marxist. The destruction of capitalism is the goal. Peoples lives are unimportant.

7 comments:

Thanks for stating WUWT is an anti-science blog, like it is. Also thanks for noting that when dealing with anti-scientists and deniers, it's always wise to take a snapshot for the archives since they may change their writings and blogs and may sue people. The sad thing of course is the anti-science snapshots take room on the hard drive. It's also sad these people aren't so stupid they do not understand science, but do their thing to confuse people, and profit from the confusion. Please, people, do not read anti-science. It's crap, and makes you feel worse, you may even get sick of it, like some scientists or science students. If you have a person you love who does maths, engineering, physics, chemistry, transportation, teaching, insurance or is in the military or in the energy sector, do not offend them by reading and reciting crap made by anti-scientists.

Of course, you could also draw an opposite conclusion: now even several usually less vocal voices make themselves heard.

Of course, Konrad Steffen, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Valerie Masson-Delmotte, David Beerling, and Johan Rockström are not small fish, and definitely not in their own region. Johan Rockström is a very well known name in Sweden for his work on the environment, French people can hardly get around Valerie Masson-Delmotte when it comes to education about climate change, and Konrad Steffen has been throwing out heavy-weight research on Greenland for a very long time already.

The list is full of luminaries. Jim Zachos' reconstruction of Cenozoic temperatures is so iconic it has been named after him: the Zachos curve. Getting something named after you is a rather big deal in science. Doubtless this Hoffer cretin has never heard of the Zachos curve.

David M. Hoffer is absolutely adorable. On November 19 in one of my last WUWT "conversations", Hoffer suggested at 3:16pm that I should be referred to as "it". His suggestion obviously appealed to ATheoK, who agreed at 7:44pm that I don't deserve a human pronoun. My response at 8:36pm was a tweet that I'd sent less than 24 hours before that (by sheer coincidence).

I'm going to send a copy of this paper to various federal politicians, with a letter posing a number of direct questions intended to ascertain that they have read the paper, and that they understand the significance of the paper, and what their intended response is to the paper.

I'd urge others to do the same thing - I want to know what our politicians think about the path to destruction that they've steered the world toward.

Further to my previous comment, this is exactly the paper that I've been waiting for for several years. I expect that Hansen+17(2013) will become a seminal paper for the decade - and as such that it will attract some of the most vehemently vituperative and venomous vitriol* ever that MBH98 will come a distant second.

The Denialati can spit and spray as much as they are able, but it won't change the laws of nature.

Bernard J.

[*That's the second time today that I've trotted out a variant of that alliteration!]

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All you need to know about WUWT

WUWT insider Willis Eschenbach tells you all you need to know about Anthony Watts and his blog, WattsUpWithThat (WUWT). As part of his scathing commentary, Wondering Willis accuses Anthony Watts of being clueless about the blog articles he posts. To paraphrase:

Even if Anthony had a year to analyze and dissect each piece...(he couldn't tell if it would)... stand the harsh light of public exposure.

Definition of Denier (Oxford): A person who denies something, especially someone who refuses to admit the truth of a concept or proposition that is supported by the majority of scientific or historical evidence.
‘a prominent denier of global warming’
‘a climate change denier’

Alternative definition: A former French coin, equal to one twelfth of a Sou, which was withdrawn in the 19th century. Oxford. (The denier has since resurfaced with reduced value.)